


Of Red Wine & Silver Barbells

by ineedtokeepdrinking



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: F/F, First Time, Nipple Piercings, Piercings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-16
Updated: 2017-09-16
Packaged: 2018-12-30 12:44:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12108999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ineedtokeepdrinking/pseuds/ineedtokeepdrinking
Summary: Set in Season 1, after the kiss of 1x06, with things going a bit differently than they did in 1x08.Based on a headcanon found on tumblr, linked within.





	Of Red Wine & Silver Barbells

**Author's Note:**

> [This](https://c-sima.tumblr.com/post/162898572166/headcanon-that-cosimas-nipples-are-pierced) headcanon inspired this piece.

They’re pleasantly drunk, and Delphine is sprawled across the bed in a way that makes Cosima’s thoughts falter. She reminds herself that Delphine is clothed, and Delphine is drunk, and Delphine is _straight,_ most importantly. 

 

She wonders if she really misjudged the situation that badly, and she considers that she had only spent approximately a week with the French woman before making the mistake—is that really long enough to have known if she was gay? The ill-timed kiss, the “It's… it’s okay,” from Delphine told her that no, she really hadn’t thought things through before she threw herself at the blonde.

It’s a miracle that Delphine even wanted to see her again, honestly. 

Cosima, nervous and slightly embarrassed after their last encounter, was two and a half glasses into a bottle of red wine when she heard the knock at her door. Delphine, upon arriving and seeing the flush on Cosima’s face and her half-empty glass, asks that Cosima pour her a glass as well, insisting that she should catch up.

And so here they are, one glass from the end of bottle number two, corkscrew on the counter next to the (as yet unopened) third.

 

“I’m not kidding!” She insists, hands gesturing wildly as she speaks to the woman on the bed. “Undergrad was a really weird time, okay?” Cosima is standing, glass of wine atop the dresser that she has been using as a prop in her story about a very drunk Berkeley professor, and a very naive 19-year-old Cosima.

“There is no way that happened,” Delphine giggles, stretching across the bed to reach for her wine that sits on the bedside table.

“I swear,” Cosima says, face serious. “Scout’s honor.” There is a beat of silence before Cosima realizes the joke has gone directly over Delphine’s head.

“Scout…?” the French woman asks slowly.

“Okay, never mind. Never mind. But it absolutely happened,” Cosima replies, turning away from Delphine and downing the last of her wine as she faces her dresser. “And this wine is making me about four hundred degrees, so I’m going to change,” she adds.

Delphine only half-registers Cosima’s words, but she snaps to attention as she glances toward the brunette and sees an expanse of bare skin, back muscles tensing as Cosima reaches behind herself and unclips her bra.

“I…” Delphine mumbles, not even fully aware that she’s spoken.

Cosima twists her head over her shoulder, looking toward Delphine as her hands shuffle through the clothing in the open drawer in front of her.  
“Don’t worry, I’m not like, trying to hit on you again,” she says, and her hands gesture about as she does so. Delphine cannot stop watching the taut muscles in Cosima’s shoulders. She consciously tries to reign herself back in- _Stop, Delphine. Delphine, look away._ She is unsuccessful. “I just really need a tank top.” Cosima says matter-of-factly, fully oblivious to Delphine’s quickly failing self control.

She wrenches her eyes away from the smaller girl, stares into the blood-red of her wine glass and blinks slowly, trying to rationalize her thoughts. When she got here, she had stupidly wondered if Cosima would make another move on her, her fears exacerbated by the amount of alcohol they had both consumed. She was having a wonderful time with the lively young girl, but part of her was a bit nervous that she’s have to rebuff Cosima a second time. What she did not expect was the reality that she would be the one unable to maintain a platonic atmosphere. To be fair, she tells herself, she also did not expect to see Cosima naked.

But Delphine is not gay- she isn’t even bisexual, she doesn’t think. She has never even considered it before. Is it because she’s drunk that she could not look away? Is it because she knows that Cosima is a clone- a purely scientific curiosity that demanded she trace her eyes over the soft dimples of Cosima’s bare waist? 

She is only broken from her tangle of thoughts when she hears a mumbled _“fuck”_ from Cosima’s mouth. She lifts her eyes to meet Cosima’s, but finds the other girl still half-naked, still facing away from Delphine. A gray tank top has been pulled over Cosima’s head, but it lies bunched just below her shoulders, hiked up to allow Cosima access to… whatever it is she is doing.

Delphine cannot really see, but based on the position of Cosima’s arms, it looks as though she may be adjusting her bra? The tiniest _tap_ sound of metal on metal sends Delphine’s brows into furrowed confusion, and realization washes over her when she notices that no, Cosima is not wearing a bra beneath the tank top.

Does she have–

“Okay, close your eyes,” Cosima instructs.

“Um… what?” Delphine asks, dumbstruck, mind tumbling over the concept she’s just understood.

“Just… I need to do something” Cosima says sheepishly, “Can you just not look for a second?”

Delphine, drunk, agrees. Delphine, drunk, also does not close her eyes until a half second after Cosima turns around, one hand poorly covering her upper half.

She was right: there was a glint of something, a reflection of light where there shouldn’t have been, and Delphine is hit with the reality of it like she has just had the air knocked out of her- Cosima’s nipples are pierced.

 

And Delphine is breathless because of it.

 

She had never been an especially big fan of piercings, aside from two or three in her ears. The idea of nipple piercings had always made her cringe a bit, had never really appealed to her. But suddenly, lying on this bed, wine-drunk with the realization that there are rhinestone-tipped barbells in Cosima’s nipples, Delphine is weak. Her breath comes a bit shorter, she knows that her cheeks and chest are flushed. She bites her lip, only coming back to reality as she hears Cosima rummage through the side-table— _oh God, she’s still naked and she’s so close_ —and then scamper back to the dresser.

“Okay, my bad. You can look now.” Cosima giggles, and she sounds as drunk as Delphine feels.

Delphine opens her eyes, and Cosima stands near the foot of the bed in a thin gray tank top, dreads now piled into a bun atop her head.

“You are okay?” Delphine asks, feigning innocence.

“Yeah, yep. Totally. I just needed to uh, grab something.” Cosima smiles at Delphine as she says it, and Delphine feels a bit like she is going to pass out.

They talk and they continue drinking, but Delphine retains none of the conversation. She struggles valiantly to keep her eyes off of Cosima’s chest and her responses coherent, but it is not easy. On more than one occasion Cosima has to repeat herself, laughing at Delphine’s distraction, assuming it’s simply because the French woman is drunk.

 

That night, after she climbs into a cab to return home, Delphine stumbles into her bed, one hand between her legs and one cupped around her own breast. She tries not to imagine what Cosima’s must feel like, and she reminds herself that she had run when Cosima kissed her, because she does not see herself sexually attracted to other women.

She is drunk, very drunk, and that has to be the only reason why she comes quietly against her hand to the thought of pierced nipples and soft back muscles.

* * *

She stands before the lab’s centrifuge, waiting for the chosen blood samples to be spun and tested. Her eyes glaze over as she watches the tiny LED screen, sees that she has more than ten minutes until the results will be ready. She shrugs out of her lab coat as she seats herself at the desk in the shared lab, staring down into one of many pages of notes. She is exhausted, and this morning she had to meet with Leekie again, who always opens the conversation impatiently, demanding updates on 324B21.

She tells him that she has nothing yet, that she is still doing her best. She does not mention that they drank nearly three bottles of wine a few days ago, or that her subject has a surprising amount of body jewelry. She does not think it pertinent information to share.

Delphine is intent upon ignoring the growing chemistry between herself and Cosima: she is playing her part, and that is all, she tells herself. She is part of a world-changing experiment, and she is protecting Cosima and her sisters—it is a job. That is what she tells herself.

But four nights in a row now, Delphine has been moaning, grinding her hips into her hand, the forbidden thought of Cosima’s body invading her thoughts. She knows this is not in her job description. And that is where her mind is—settled upon the idea of Cosima’s hand in place of her own, of Cosima’s bare chest—when the woman in question approaches her.

“Hey, Delphine!” Cosima smiles, breaking a very guilty-looking Delphine out of her fantasy.

“ _Bonjour_ Cosima,” Delphine replies breathily, heart pounding, smiling through unmistakable arousal.

“Are you… okay?” Cosima asks, tilting her head as Delphine fumbles for an answer.

“ _Oui,_ yes, absolutely.” Her words come a bit too quickly, her breath a bit too short, and she prays that Cosima does not notice. She tries not to imagine the piercings that she knows lie beneath Cosima’s lab coat, beneath the fitted shirt that the brunette is wearing.

“Soooo,” Cosima drags the syllable out, something that Delphine was learning was rather common with American slang. “I was wondering if you wanted to hang tonight?”

“Yes! Yes,” she replies with more enthusiasm than she means to. “I will be done here shortly. Is around six okay?”

“Perfect,” Cosima grins, before turning on her heel and unknowingly leaving Delphine desperately distracted.

* * *

“Delphine, hi.” Cosima says as she opens the door. Whatever she says next is completely lost on the French woman, because Cosima is wearing another tank top, and it is white, and Delphine can see straight through it. Cosima’s piercings are more apparent than they have ever been, and Delphine thinks her legs are going to give out beneath her.

“Hey… you okay?” Cosima asks, looking concerned.

Delphine gets her bearings long enough to mumble a yes, but Cosima is not convinced. She gently takes hold of Delphine’s arms, as if holding her steady. “No, seriously. Are you alright? You look like you're…” and Cosima trails off, unsure what it is exactly that she sees on Delphine’s face.

“I'm… a bit… distracted,” Delphine offers quietly, tearing her eyes away from Cosima’s slim body and thin shirt. 

“Oh, shit, like, bad distracted? Tough day?” Cosima asks innocently, blissfully unaware. 

Delphine blinks hard, determined to clear her head, and barely has time to reply with an, _“Um,”_ before Cosima has let go of her arms and is spinning around, making her way toward the kitchen.

“You know what? Don’t even talk about it if you don’t want to. Here’s what I’m gonna do,” Cosima’s back is to her as she rambles. “I’m going to distract you from your distraction.” She says it as though it’s the simplest solution. Delphine is still rooted to the spot just inside Cosima’s door when Cosima rushes back toward her with a full glass of wine.

“Here,” she grins. “Let the distraction begin.”

“ _Merci,_ ” Delphine whispers, a quiet smile spreading across her face. She drops her bag, and clumsily removes her coat, one arm at a time, taking care not to spill the glass of wine. Cosima truly has no idea the effect she is having.

“So, first order of business. Food. Any preferences?” Cosima asks over her shoulder. 

_You,_ Delphine thinks. She wonders what Cosima tastes like, and her cheeks grow red at the thought. Had their kiss done this to her? A single, one-sided kiss, and suddenly she could not stop herself from imagining Cosima moaning her name?

A long pause settles between them, in which Delphine tries to control her thoughts, and Cosima grows increasingly more concerned.

 

“Hey… you really don’t seem okay.” Cosima says softly, suddenly in her personal space. Delphine opens her mouth to respond, but her brain refuses to abandon the thought of leaving hickeys on the inside of Cosima’s thighs. At this point, she is mildly surprised that Cosima cannot physically feel the tension she is radiating. She wonders if maybe she should abandon the struggle.

Delphine meets the brunette’s gaze wordlessly, trying to find an appropriate answer. She watches as Cosima’s eyes slowly morph from concern into confusion, and then into something else, something thick. They stay like that for a moment, eyes locked, not speaking.

It is not until Delphine moves to place her wine glass on the nearby table that she notices the visceral reaction Cosima’s body seems to be having. She drags her eyes over the smaller girl’s figure—she’s flushed, and visibly tense. Delphine’s breath falters as her eyes reach Cosima’s chest; her nipples have tightened, pulled taut, the silver of her piercings straining against the fabric of her tank top. When Delphine’s eyes finally rise to meet Cosima’s, she sees hunger, as though her own thoughts are being mirrored back to her.

 

Delphine takes a deep breath, and realizes that she does not know how to make the first move without ruining this. She moves toward Cosima, lifting a hand to trail her fingers down the shorter girl’s arm, and Cosima exhales a shuddering breath.

“I… I thought you, um… didn't…” Cosima is trying her best to make sense of this situation, trying her hardest to get some sort of explanation from Delphine, but she can’t get the words out. Delphine’s hand has trailed to her neck now, fingers sliding along her collarbones, and Cosima is holding her breath, eyes wide as she watches the taller woman’s face.

“A few days ago,” Delphine starts quietly. “You asked me to close my eyes. When we were in your room. Do you remember?” Her fingernails scratch light trails along Cosima’s neck, down to her chest.

“Uh, I think so?” Cosima’s voice betrays her confusion. Is Delphine going somewhere with this? What are they even talking about?

“You had a tank top on. Like this one. But it was not… covering you,” Delphine speaks slowly, eyes glued to Cosima’s skin, as if she does not even realize she’s speaking aloud. “You asked me not to look, but you turned before I could close my eyes.”

Cosima is even more lost than before, and the expression on her face makes that evident. A part of her is trying to drink all of this in, the feel of Delphine’s fingers trailing across her clavicle, but the bigger part of her has absolutely no idea what is going on. Is Delphine already drunk?

“I saw,” Delphine breathes. “I saw your piercings.”

“Oh.” Cosima flushes red. She had forgotten that she asked Delphine to close her eyes last week while she changed the rings. Stupid, she thinks. She regrets how drunk she was to have made that decision. “I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

"Shh,” Delphine is whispering now, licking her lips in a way that makes Cosima’s mind wander. “Do not apologize. I have been… thinking about them since then.”

Cosima’s eyes widen a bit as she watches Delphine speak. “My…” She giggles—she cannot help herself. This is ridiculous. “You’ve been thinking about my nipples, Dr. Cormier?”

Cosima’s laugh breaks Delphine from her reverie, and her hand stills, falls to Cosima’s waist when their eyes meet. She tries to think of something witty to say, a joke to match Cosima’s levity, but nothing comes to her. Delphine bites her lip, and sees Cosima’s eyes drop to watch. The smirk falls from Cosima’s face, and before she can look up to meet Delphine’s eyes again, they are kissing. It’s insistent and desperate and very new for Delphine, but she bulldozes ahead, confident that she will figure this out as she goes. Her tongue teases Cosima’s lips, and the shorter woman pulls back abruptly.

“Wait, are you sure? I mean it’s okay, you’re not—”

“Cosima,” Delphine is breathless as the name tumbles from her mouth. _“Please.”_

 

She does not need to ask Cosima twice.

 

They fall together a second time, a kiss deeper and charged with an electricity that sets Delphine on fire. When she pulls away momentarily to run her tongue down Cosima’s neck, the brunette lets out a moan that makes Delphine feel like she is going to faint. Her hands toy with the hem of Cosima’s sinfully thin tank top, but then she pauses when she realizes that she really does not know what to do.

“Do it,” Cosima commands, sensing the French woman’s hesitation.

Delphine obliges, pulls the shirt up over Cosima’s head with an urgency and aggression that she had not even realized she possessed. And then her eyes drop to Cosima’s bare chest, and, _oh._

“Oh, my God,” she whispers, and she isn’t sure if she’s spoken in English or French. Her hands cover Cosima’s chest, reveling in the feeling of something so new, something she has never had the pleasure of experiencing. The piercings press into Delphine’s palms, solid and impossible to ignore, and Delphine takes a sharp breath, completely undone by the image and the feel of this moment.

Cosima is smiling, fighting back laughter as she watches Delphine stare at her in wonder. “Wow, you like ‘em that much?” She asks Delphine, an amused smirk playing at her lips.

Delphine looks at Cosima and meets her eyes, her lip caught between her teeth. She looks so utterly _in awe,_ Cosima cannot help but laugh.

 

Delphine does not laugh, does not chuckle as she pulls Cosima by the hand toward the desk. She does not laugh when she falls backward into the desk chair, pulling Cosima with her so that the younger girl is straddling her lap. And then Cosima’s laughter has left her face as well, her expression transformed into something akin to lust. She’s got her legs on either side of a seated Delphine, and she is completely bare from the waist up. It occurs to her that this is really happening, and just as she considers arguing that Delphine is wearing far too many clothes, soft lips close around her left nipple, and Cosima’s body contracts in surprise, a small noise escaping her lips.

She looks down, watches in awe as Delphine runs the flat of her tongue over her nipple, biting lightly at the metal of the piercing. One of Cosima’s hands finds a place at the back of Delphine’s head, tangled in blonde curls.

_“Oh,”_ Cosima exhales, eyes half-closed. She swallows, almost loses her train of thought when Delphine’s tongue drags across her chest to find her other nipple. Her voice comes out quietly, her arousal obvious. “I wouldn’t have pegged you for the piercing type.”

Delphine pauses momentarily, presses another soft kiss to the underside of Cosima’s breast and glances up at the girl in her lap. “Truthfully,” she breathes, breath hot against warm skin. “I did not know I was either.”

And with that, Delphine’s hand strays to the back of Cosima’s neck, and winds itself into dreads she finds there. She pulls Cosima ever closer in an attempt to reattach lips to neck, and the brunette slides further into Delphine’s lap until their hips are practically meeting on the chair.

Delphine descends on Cosima’s throat with a passion unbridled—she bites, drags her teeth down soft skin, anything to hear Cosima moan again. Cosima’s whines come in shuddering breaths, and Delphine is _loving_ it, and then she feels the first press of Cosima’s hips.

 

The younger girl’s forearms are resting on Delphine’s shoulders, eyes closed in bliss, and Delphine can’t be sure that Cosima even has control over her body anymore. Slim hips grind into Delphine over and over again, a smooth rocking motion that sends Delphine’s thoughts somewhere significantly more explicit, filled with images of Cosima’s hips grinding against her mouth in the same way.

She lets out a strangled gasp as Cosima rolls against her again, and it is now Delphine’s turn to breathe out moans that she has been trying to suppress.

“Can I…?” She whispers into Cosima’s neck, afraid that if she speaks too loudly she will break the spell they both seem to be under.

“What do you want?” Cosima asks breathily, eyes hooded and filled with desire.

“I want to taste you.” Delphine whispers it into Cosima’s ear, punctuating it with a light nibble of cosima’s earlobe. She feels a shudder run through the smaller woman’s body, and she already knows the answer.

“If… yeah. I mean, if you want to,” Cosima is still struggling to get her thoughts in order, but she replies with a bit more consciousness as she slowly extricates herself from Delphine’s lap.

Delphine stands, letting her need to touch Cosima overpower the reality that she is about to do something that she has never done before, something she has absolutely zero experience in. But Cosima is standing in front of her, chest bare, piercings reflecting the soft light from the window, and Delphine thinks she could die happy like this.

“Um,” Cosima begins, suddenly looking very lost. “Did you, like, want some wine?”

She is stalling, and it hits Delphine that Cosima is nearly as nervous as she is.  
Delphine closes the distance between them in two strides, pulling her own sweater off over her head as she does so.

_“Non,”_ she mumbles into Cosima’s lips as they collide, Delphine backing Cosima into her bedroom with an insistency that is punctuated by the ache between her thighs. “I do not need wine.”

Delphine walks them forward, pausing to remove her own undershirt when the back of Cosima’s legs hit the bed. They tumble onto the comforter, skin on skin, wrapped around each other.

When Cosima’s hand finds its way between Delphine’s thighs, she smirks. _Cheeky, always cheeky,_ Delphine thinks.

“Jesus, you’re so wet,” Cosima exhales, smiling again. “This is all because of my piercings?” Delphine wants to feign anger, wants to give Cosima a scolding glance that says _now is not the time to make fun of me,_ but all that escapes her is a sharp gasp, a high keening sound, as Cosima’s fingers work against her.

 

Later, when Cosima’s hips are bucking against Delphine’s tongue, and she is letting out a stream of _“Oh God"_ s and _"Delphine, fuck"_ s, it is Delphine’s turn to look up at her lover from between her legs, a smirk of satisfaction painting her lips.


End file.
